Ian Whyteside FMAAT's article on Real Time Information (RTI)

StuartW

RTI will radically alter the way employers report PAYE information to HMRC.

Writing for AAT Comment, Ian Whyteside FMAAT offers his thoughts on RTI and outlines how AAT has responded to a consultation on the initiative. The article also contain a link to AAT's Introduction to RTI vodcast.

AAT Comment: Right time for Real Time Information?

ExcelAnt

If you havn't heard about RTI...

Interesting comment. I've had some spare time at work and decided to learn about payroll from scratch. I stumbled across RTI in my curiousity read up on it.

It is a basic change from annual filing of P35's to a "per pay day" filing system. It means the government have live data of pay. This is of huge benefit across government as most welfare benefits are now means tested, based on data a year old (the benefits are then subject to huge error and fraud) RTI is a move to correct this. Hopefully a side effect will be less cases of incorrect tax paid by the general public.

To back up RTI the HMRC has provided free online Payroll tools and made improvements to the government gateways and providing the desktop viewer.

The penalty fee structure noted by the AAT comment has to be fair to all employers. The current flaws in Payroll/PAYE (and indeed RTI will make it slightly worse once live) - place a heavy burden on small employers as payroll costs are regressive (costs roughly similar for 5 employees as 50 so per head small business loses).

The whole system is particularly harsh on those who are carers or similar due to the nature of there trade, in all of this I would like to hear more comment made for those kinds of areas of employment. The paperwork involved is apparently a minefield and does not utilise the HMRC online system

The end goal of RTI is to move to a system of centralised deductions, an amazing idea that is a form of pipe dream but backed by all government parties. It goes along the lines below:

Employer pays by bacs (Gross)
Payment sent through a personal account by NINO (National insurance)
Payment is sent to centralised calculator to deduct PAYE NICS student loans etc
Employee receives net wages

No need for payroll, bar benefits in kind and P11d's which will still be filed annually under RTI and centralised deductions.

Main source:
http://www.appgtaxation.org/PAYE_at_the_Crossroads.pdf
3 July 2012

StuartW

Ian gets about - here are his 5 ways to get ahead of the introduction of RTI for TaxDonut.co.uk.